


Perfectly Imperfect

by 5unfl0w3r



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, How Do I Tag, No beta we die like men ajfhdk, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Trans Male Character, estonia is only in here briefly im sorry, ftm Finland, i crave estfin friendship now, i want to make a series but im bad at continuous writing, if i make another book in the series there will be more them, not in a fetishy uwu soft trans boi way, oh yeah Finland is referred to as a girl until like the very end, please dont fetishise trans ppl its gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23748688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5unfl0w3r/pseuds/5unfl0w3r
Summary: Her parents always told her who she had to be, and she was okay with that, until she wasn't.
Relationships: Estonia & Finland (Hetalia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Perfectly Imperfect

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, I don't really know how to do these things, but thanks for reading <3
> 
> Btw Hellä is Timo's birth/dead name because Tina is un-creative and I'm like 97% sure it's not Finnish (Yes, I said Timo, not Tino, since guess what, Tino isn't Finnish either, it's Italian, while Timo is of Finnish/German origin)
> 
> Idk if y'all care why I picked Hellä but it's because it means 'gentle/tender' in Finnish according to the internet, and as we know Timo is a gentle badass. (idk why I put thought into a dead-name fhdskjfk)
> 
> Also I'm sorry if the formatting is off I write on docs and I'm new to how ao3 works ;; (plus I read on mobile so uh that doesn't help whoops)

_Perfect._

Hellä hated that word. A word her parents constantly told her she had to be. A word that made her stomach queasy whenever she heard it. A word that represented everything Hellä hated about herself, but she couldn’t tell you why.

Her parents wanted her to be the perfect girl. They wanted her to be dainty and polite, and never anything like a boy. Boys were rude and destructive, always messy and gross. Hellä wasn’t allowed to do anything boys could do, because _That’s not how a lady would act._

And that’s how life was, and for the first 11 years of her life, she was fine with it. Hellä didn’t mind all the dresses and dolls, in fact, she enjoyed them, only occasionally annoyed that she was never allowed to play outside with the other kids on her street, but it was fine because that’s how life was. Yet something changed.

Hellä loved her dresses, but every time she wore them it felt… Strange? Wrong? She couldn’t tell, but it made her feel awful, the way the fabric clung to her skin made her sick, and she hated it. She wanted to cry, to make the feeling go away because she loved her dresses, but how could she love her dresses if they made her feel so bad? Bad feelings went away when she told her mum, and so she did. Hellä cried to her mom about how the dress made her feel icky and weird. Her mom just sighed. 

“Hellä, that just means you’re growing up. You're starting to become a woman, as all girls do." As her mom spoke more about her maturing, she grew more and more uncomfortable.

"Mom," She whispered, "I don't think I want to be a woman." Her mom just stared, chuckling a bit.

"Don't say that, Hellä. I know it sounds scary, but you're going to be a beautiful young lady. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise." Hellä silently nodded as her mom hugged her.

* * *

She wished she didn't talk to her mom about that. Her parents started emphasizing how she was a girl more than before. Every time they said her name, every time they called her _Their beautiful little lady_ , she felt more and more repulsed, with both them and herself. She couldn’t stand it, she couldn’t stand feeling this way.

At night, she began to lie awake in bed, unable to sleep as thoughts swarmed her mind. She would cry, covering her mouth as she sobbed so her parents wouldn’t hear. Why did she feel this way? Why couldn’t she look at herself in the mirror anymore without her breath quickening, her eyes watering? Why couldn’t she hear her own voice without her throat closing up because _That’s not how it should sound_? Why… Why wasn’t she normal? She knew she couldn’t possibly be normal; she asked her friend Eduard about it at school once, and he knew basically everything.

_“Eduard?”_

_“Yeah Hellä?” Her fingers clenched the end of her dress, and suddenly it was harder to talk._

_“Do… Uh, do you… Ever… Does your… Voice..? Does it… Ever feel… Wrong? Like… Like it’s… Supposed to… Um… Like it… It sounds… Like it’s not yours..?” Her voice got quieter and quieter as she spoke, nervously scratching her arms. He stared at her, processing what she had said._

_“Nope! At least I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that!” Eduard smiled, before looking at Hellä’s fallen expression, “Do… Do you think your voice sounds like… It’s not yours?” Now she really felt like she couldn’t speak, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She was stuck in her own mind, frozen in place. Until she felt something touch her arm._

_She flinched away from the touch, instinctively hitting in that direction. She heard a_ Thwack _and opened her tear-filled eyes to see Eduard holding his face, recoiling in pain. They stared at each other, both shocked. And then the bell rang._

_They didn’t talk for a while after that._

* * *

Hellä woke up, face wet and pillow damp from last night, though that was becoming a common occurrence. She stared at her pillow, flipping it over to hide the tear stain from her parents. She wanted to lie in bed for the rest of her life, unmoving, but she knew her parents would be furious if she did that, so she went to get ready for the day.

Walking downstairs in her most not-awful-feeling clothes (A white shirt with pink flowers, and black leggings), she looked around for her parents to ask them her favourite question. You see, it was Saturday, the only day her parents let her go to the public library if they didn’t feel like dealing with her, _and_ the only day she could look up things her parents would never let her look up at home.

She found her dad sitting on the living room couch, drinking coffee and watching who-knows-what on the tv. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, mumbling a greeting before focusing back on the tv.

“Dad, would I be allowed to go to the library today?” Hellä plastered on the nicest smile she could manage, “Please.” She paused, awaiting the response. Her dad glanced over at her once again, nodding.

“Thank you.” She smiled politely, turning around and letting a huge grin spread across her face. Hellä ran to the front door, slipping on a pair of shoes and grabbing her ‘Library bag’. She bounced on her heels, shutting the door behind her gently and jumping down the front steps and sprinting down the street.

When she arrived, she immediately went over to the computers. She put her bag beside her chair, pulling her library card out of an inside pocket. She punched in her library card number to log in, impatiently waiting for it to load. As soon as the icon appeared she clicked the browser, watching as the window opened.

She stared at the open tab, cursor blinking inside the search bar. She couldn’t deal not knowing how, knowing _why_ she was feeling this way, yet as she sat at the computer, her mind drew a blank. How was she supposed to put words to all her feelings, let alone in one question? She began to type _‘why’_ but she paused, deleting it. Slowly, she typed in ‘ _I’m a girl but_ ’, watching the browser’s auto predict fill in the sentence.

_‘I’m a girl but I want to be a boy’_

She looked over the words, trying to process exactly what they meant. The cursor hovered over the search, and she clicked it. Scrolling through the newly-opened page, she skimmed the links’ titles to articles and help websites, until she came across one that made her heart clench in a familiar way.

‘ _I was born a girl, but I don’t like being called anything girl related. Help?_ ’

She clicked.

‘ _Okay, so I was born a girl, but I’ve never liked doing or wearing anything considered girly or feminine. Everyone always called me a tomboy, and I was fine with that. But recently I’ve hated people referring to me as a girl, or woman, or anything related to the female gender. I’ve even begun to hate people calling me my own name! I don’t know why I feel this way, it’s awful and I wish it would just stop. Is there a word for feeling like this? Thanks in advance._ ’

Hellä’s grip grew tighter on the computer mouse as she scrolled down to the comment section, looking for any response that could help her with her own feelings. There were a few unhelpful ones, telling the question-asker that life just felt awful sometimes and to get over it, but one made her feel more understood than she’d ever been.

‘ _Maybe you’re just extremely tomboyish, or butch, but there’s always a possibility you could be transgender. A transgender person is someone whose gender identity doesn’t line up with their birth sex, which can cause them to feel extremely uncomfortable. I’d recommend trying male pronouns and a masculine name out with yourself and others to see how it feels, and if you haven’t already, get some men’s clothes. Good luck!_ ’

_Transgender_.

Hellä didn’t know that word. A word that seemed to describe what she… Was it even _She_ anymore? ...What _they_ , what _he_ was feeling. A word that made him feel like maybe, just maybe, what he was feeling wasn’t that strange after all. A word that represented everything he hated about himself, but at least he could finally tell you why.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, welcome to the end! Again, thank you for reading! You don't have to, but any comment, whether it's a long review about errors and how I could improve on my writing, or just a short and simple '<3' to show you liked it would make my day!
> 
> I want to continue this as a series because I know I wouldn't be able to stick to writing a multi-chapter fic, but my inspiration comes at random times (like the middle of the night), so I dunno if I'll ever write for this again. Hope I do though because I'm already planning stuff out akjfdsjf
> 
> Also, I don't know if y'all noticed but personally I love how the ending line reflects the beginning line. I just kept smiling like a dork every time I looked at the lines, even tho I had less than 500 words when I decided to do that. It's good to be happy with what you make, and my author's heart thought that was the greatest thing in the world afjlsd
> 
> Anyways, love y'all and have a good day!


End file.
